Thousand Oaks, Armistice, Lion Air: Your Friday Briefing

Good morning. Another mass shooting in the U.S., a century since the Armistice, and how the Mandarin duck got its name.

Here’s the latest:

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CreditJenna Schoenefeld for The New York Times

• A mass shooting in California.

Investigators were searching for clues to why a former Marine armed with a .45-caliber handgun, legally obtained, opened fire at a crowded dance hall in Thousand Oaks, Calif., on Wednesday night, killing 12 people.

He was identified as Ian D. Long, 28, a combat veteran. He had served in Afghanistan and was later evaluated for post-traumatic stress. But the authorities said they had determined that he posed no threat.

He died after being confronted by police officers, including one who became his victim, Sgt. Ron Helus. Sergeant Helus was honored Thursday in the procession seen above.

Some of the hundreds of the people in the club had survived the mass shooting at a country music festival last year in Las Vegas, where 58 people were killed.

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CreditPhilippe Huguen/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

• 100 years after the Armistice.

Dozens of world leaders will commemorate the end of World War I in France this weekend, and President Emmanuel Macron, above, hopes the occasion puts them in mind of the dangers of nationalism.

On the world stage, he has few allies in defending immigration and liberal governance. In Europe, he is despised by rising populist movements. At home, his policies and aristocratic image are putting people off.

Mr. Macron recently likened this era to the one between the world wars. Analysts told us he’ll have to do a better job of grappling with discontent if he hopes to change the Continent’s course.

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CreditJonathan Ernst/Reuters

• Another jam-packed day in American politics.

To justify the White House’s unusual move of barring the CNN reporter Jim Acosta, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders falsely claimed he had laid hands on a staff member, above right, during a contentious presidential news conference. Ms. Sanders circulated misleadingly edited video of the encounter that came from an infamous conspiracy website.

We’ve had reporters around the world consulting investigators, pilots and aviation experts, trying to understand what may have caused a new Boeing jet to crash into the Java Sea last week, at the cost of 189 lives.

The single-aisle Boeing aircraft appears to have plummeted nose-first at as much as 400 m.p.h., striking the waves in less than a minute. And it’s become clear that there might have been a whole cascade of problems — including erroneous data, a burst of confusing alarms in the cockpit and the culture at Lion Air, an Indonesian airline.

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CreditBryan R. Smith/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

•Google overhauls its sexual misconduct policy.

The technology giant said it would end forced arbitration for sexual harassment or assault claims, days after more than 20,000 of its employees around the world, prompted by a Times investigation, walked out in protest of how the company handles cases of sexual misconduct. Above, one of the walkouts.

In the News

• “A game of chicken”: U.S. naval commanders see growing risks of a clash with China in the disputed waters of the South China Sea. Above, a U.S. cruiser in the region. [The New York Times]

• A Spanish law that seeks to atone for the expulsion of Sephardic Jews in 1492, by giving their descendants a path to citizenship, is attracting Hispanics with Sephardic heritage who say they are worried about growing racism in the U.S. [The New York Times]

• Prince Charles, who is often outspoken and controversial, said that he would be more circumspect about expressing his views as king. [The New York Times]

• A French court ruled that a sculpture by Jeff Koons improperly copied a 1985 clothing ad, and ordered Mr. Koons to pay its creator $170,000. [The New York Times]

• France’s highest literary award, the Goncourt Prize, went to Nicolas Mathieu for “Leurs Enfants Après Eux” (“Their Children After Them”), his novel of teenagers growing up in a crumbling region of France in the 1990s. [The New York Times]

• Vintage: Archaeologists discovered a bronze pot in China that they think contains several liters of 2,000-year-old wine. [The South China Morning Post]

Noteworthy

• Leonor Fini, a forgotten figure in 20th century art who was close to the Surrealists but resisted labels, while inverting usual gender roles in her work, is the subject of a retrospective at the Museum of Sex in Manhattan. Above, “Woman Seated on a Naked Man.”

Back Story

The duck, above, a native to East Asia that quickly became a star on social media, is a yuānyang (鸳鸯) in China. In English, it’s a Mandarin duck. Why?

The fowl’s vibrant plumage recalls the dress of government bureaucrats centuries ago, called mandarins in the West. The same connection applied to the dialect those officials used. Even mandarin oranges got the linguistic overlay.

But mandarin is not a Chinese word. Its etymology is disputed.

Some say that during the Qing dynasty, visiting Westerners heard people calling government officials of the ruling class “mǎn dàrén” (满大人): Manchu for “big man” or “boss.”

Others say that the term comes from “menteri,” the Malay for “court councilor” or “minister,” and that the 16th-century Portuguese who used Malaysia as a stepping stone into China wrote it as “mandarin.”

The little duck in Central Park has been solo, but in China, its cousins are believed to be lifelong couples. There is a saying: A pair of Mandarin ducks is more enviable than an immortal.

Amy Chang Chien wrote today’s back story. It was first published in our new Chinese-language Morning Briefing. (Sign-up for that here.)

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